Chelsea's English midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek (L) celebrates with Chelsea's Brazilian-born Spanish striker Diego Costa after scoring his team's second goal during the FA Cup third-round football match between Chelsea and Scunthorpe United at Stamford Bridge in London on January 10, 2016. AFP PHOTO / GLYN KIRK
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The week that was …

Sunday 3 January
Crystal Palace 0:3 Chelsea
An away win, Chelsea won away from home. If there are corners in a football season this feels like one. Diego Costa made it three goals in two games and Willian found the back of the net from outside the box, again.
Palace were lively to start with, they had a long unbeaten run to protect and their noisy support made for a lively few minutes before Cesc Fábregas slotted a though ball to Costa who calmly laid the ball into Oscar’s path. 0-1.
Palace still felt they had a chance but Chelsea’s football suddenly hit another gear and Courtois wasn’t really troubled from that point on.
In the second-half we worked the ball through midfield like a well oiled machine until a pass intended for Oscar ran through to Willian who hit his shot from 25-yards straight into the top corner. 0-2. Sometimes the goalkeeper can see a shot coming but it travels so fast he cannot react.
Diego Costa tapped in the third as Willian again broke into space and slid a cross across the six-yard box. 0-3.
The players celebrated as a unit, played as a unit and looked a team. Guus is having the desired effect.

Monday 4 January
John Swift has extended his successful loan down the road at Griffin Park until the end of the season. But for every loan that worked there are those that did not and Patrick Bamford and Christian Atsu were not given the minutes on the pitch at Palace and Bournemouth respectively so they have returned.
Meanwhile in the footnotes the wonderfully named Ulises Davila has left us for Santos Laguna in Mexico on a transfer.

Wednesday 6 January
Southampton U21 1:0 Chelsea U21
First-half dominance and plenty of chances were not enough in the end as Southampton progress in the U21 league cup. We looked rusty but should have had them buried by the break.
Eva Carneiro and Chelsea had a pre-hearing meeting at the employment tribunal – there have probably never been that many press photographers in Croydon before today – but they couldn’t come to an agreement so a hearing will be scheduled.

Thursday 7 January
Eden Hazard celebrates his 25 birthday today. Which means he still has seven or eight seasons at the top of his game. Luck lad.
To the training ground for an, alleged, explosive bust up between Oscar and Costa. We know of this only because Oscar tweeted to say there had been no fight but, apparently, they squared up to each other after a couple of tasty tackles. It is good to know Oscar has that kind of fight in him because he still looks like a six-stone schoolboy.
Call us green but doesn’t every week at least twice at every training ground?

Friday 8 January
Wow, we pay the highest wages in the league. Many top names at Manchester City will be talking to their agents after new deals for a host of our players and the arrival of Costa and Fabregas tipped the scales. Up by £25m on the year.
Chelsea Pitch Owners released a statement and we went to the site to read all about it but, after noting that Steve Frankham was stepping down as chair, we fell into a deep sleep, as usual when reading CPO reports.

Saturday 9 January
Chelsea U18 4:2 Tottenham U18
The usual scoring glut against Tottenham as Ike Ugbo, Mason Mount and Isaac Christie-Davis chipped in with the goals that keep us top of the league.

Sunday 10 January
Chelsea 2:0 Scunthorpe United
After a weekend without cup shocks BT Sport pitched up to see if we would oblige. Thankfully we were all switched on and facing in the right direction.
Diego Costa scored our first after Ivanovic crossed deep into the area Costa got across his man and deflected the ball into the far corner. 1-0.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek emerged for the second period and played a proper part in quelling the Irons growing confidence. Azpilicueta crossed and Loftus-Cheek clipped the ball in at the near post. Imagine scoring your first goal for Chelsea in front of the Matthew Harding at just 19. 2-0.
He was joined on the pitch by Kennedy and Bernard Traore as Guus gave youth its head.
Scunthorpe had their moments and certainly deserved praise for never giving up. They could, perhaps should, have had a penalty and hit the frame of the goal with a rasping shot. Thankfully Chelsea were not in a generous mood.
The FA have decided that their cup competition need to have its dignity and gravitas restored so the forth round draw will take place on Monday evening during the, erm, ahem, the One Show.